The Master
History Early life The Master's true origins are surrounded in mystery and there are many conflicting theories about it. In his seventh incarnation, the Doctor related a story which explained the Master's origins. He said that both he and the Master had been mercilessly and viciously bullied as children. The young Doctor found himself forced to kill the bully in order to save his friend's life. He was later confronted by the personification of Death who insisted he become her disciple. The Doctor refused and instead suggested Death make the Master her champion instead, to which she agreed. The Doctor said that ever since he had always felt partly responsible for the carnage the Master would later cause. (BFA: Master) Like most Gallifreyans taken as Time Lords, the Master would be taken at the age of eight for his training. During the ceremony where he gazed into the Time Vortex through the Untempered Schism, it is said that he went insane. This manifested by the constant drumming he heard ever since the event, which appeared to worsen as time went on. (DW: Utopia/ The Sound of Drums/ Last of the Time Lords) Vendetta Against the Doctor Origins of the Vendetta After the Doctor fled Gallifrey, the Master was recruited to pursue and apprehend him. His unstable obsession with order however, prompted the Time Lords to plant the Time Lady Ailla as a spy to monitor the Master's actions. Ailla posed as a Human so that the Master would take her on as his companion during a stopover in the 28th century. He caught up with the Doctor at the Darkheart colony in the early years of the Federation. The temptation posed by the Darkheart device proved too much for the Master, and the revelation that Ailla had been a spy killed the last traces of good in him. After the Doctor trapped him in a black hole the Master swore to take revenge on him. (MA: The Dark Path) The Vendetta Continues The Master then sought to defeat the newly regenerated Doctor on Earth and in doing so came up against him, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and the rest of UNIT. During one vendetta, the Master was visited by Rack, who told him that he would never defeat the Doctor in his third incarnation, and only stood a chance when the Doctor was in his tenth incarnation. The Master changed time, and travelled to 2011, where he and Spike, his Human helper, hid Aquari in the ice of the Arctic. He took the name Mr Toil and set up the Aquari Aquatics Factory, where the Aquari could grow and mature. They were ready by the 40th Century, and, after tricking Lee Hashimoto and Donald Digit, he ensured they were released. (DW: Aquari Aquatics) He ordered the Aquari to attacked television centres and to kill the Doctor's companions, Georgia Bell, Conner Bennet and Korena Hashimoto. He captured Georgia, Conner, Lee, Donald and Julian, before returning to the past in his TARDIS to kill the Doctor. He was prevented from doing so by Kaylie Watson, so he returned to the future, where his plans were beginning to unravel. He was attacked by an Aquari, which knocked him out. The Doctor, returned to the future, removed his memories of these events, and the Master left in his TARDIS, to continue his vendetta against the Third Doctor. (DW: The Water's Song) Degeneration Susan Foreman triggered an explosion when the Master attempted to kidnap her. He exhausted his regenerative cycle recovering from the injuries sustained in the explosion on the planet Tersurus (EDA: Legacy of the Daleks), where Chancellor Goth found him in a wasted condition. The Master had by this time reached the end of his regeneration cycle and had turned into an animate though rotting corpse. The Master, with the collaboration of Goth, lured the Doctor to Gallifrey in order to have him framed for the assassination of the Lord President. The Master nearly succeeded in acquiring the Eye of Harmony and using its energy reserves to renew himself. (DW: The Deadly Assassin) On the planet Traken, the centre of the Traken Union, still in his degenerated form, the Master plotted to take over the Source, the power behind the Traken Union. (DW: The Keeper of Traken) Usurpation The Master did manage to steal the body of Tremas, the father of the Doctor's future companion, Nyssa. (DW: The Keeper of Traken) He immediately set out on a new career of villainy in his new body. (DW: Logopolis) Eventually, he found himself taken over on the Cheetah World by a foreign influence and began to lose control. He ended up trapped there as it began to die. (DW: Survival) New Regenerative Cycle The Master was able to teleport from the Cheetah World to 1953 Earth where he constructed himself an identity as Major Kreer. He made a deal with the Tzun to restore his corrupted Time Lord DNA, caused by his physical merger with the Trakenite, Tremas. This was a success, and he was able to regenerate into a new body. (NA: First Frontier) The Master later attempted to seize control of a powerful artifact known as the Warp Core. This plan backfired and due to his exposure to the device the Master's body reverted to a state similar to his degenerated form. For a while he persisted in trying to acquire the Core. During that time he habitually wore a mask and adopted the alias Mr Seta. (BFA: Dust Breeding) Doctor John Smith The Doctor related a story of how he made a deal with Death whereby the Master would have ten years of peace and sanity, at the end of which the Doctor must kill him. The still-scarred Master had become a physician with no memory of his past, and took the name Doctor John Smith. He was still somehow deeply aware of his dark nature and troubled by it. The Master had in the meantime become emotionally involved with a woman named Jaqueline Schaeffer during this time. At the end of the ten years the Doctor duly arrived but strove to avoid fulfilling his side of the bargain. The Master became aware of the Doctor's role in pledging him to Death as her servant but forgave him for it. Death herself was present then, disguised as the Master's maid. She manipulated events so that it would appear inevitable that the John Smith persona would crumble and the true Master become dominant once more. (BFA: Master) Glory Eventually, he was tried and executed and physically destroyed by the Daleks on Skaro as part of a Time Lord-Dalek treaty. However, his essence survived in a fluid-like form called either a morphant (DWM: The Fallen) or a deathworm (EDA: The Eight Doctors). His "last wish" was for the Doctor to transport his remains to Gallifrey, which allowed him to take over the body of Bruce, an ambulance driver on Earth. At the end of his battle with the recently regenerated Doctor, the Master fell into the Eye of Harmony, and appeared to be destroyed. (DW: Doctor Who: The TV Movie) However, the Master was rescued from the Vortex by a being named Esterath, the then-controller of the Glory, the focal point of reality. It would soon be time for the Glory to gain another controller, but the power had to be fought for. Of course, the Master assumed the battle would be between himself and his greatest foe. Given a new body, the Master trailed the Doctor for some time without his enemy suspecting - even after they had met face to face. He was present in London during the crisis resulting from Grace Holloway's attempt to merge Human and Time Lord DNA (the alien DNA was in fact that of a morphant from Skaro). He killed an MI6 agent with the Tissue Compression Eliminator at this time, but fortunately the Doctor departed before the Master's trademark was discovered. (DWM: The Fallen) The Master later made contact with Sato Katsura, a Japanese samurai unwillingly rendered immortal as a result of his involvement in the Doctor's adventures. The embittered warrior became the Master's follower. At his behest, Sato adopted the identity of Cardinal Morningstar and became leader of the Church of the Glorious Dead, instigator of a holy war that altered the history of Earth and led to it becoming known as Dhakan. Passing through the Eye had given the Master the ability to influence the flight of the TARDIS, which he used to send the craft to times and places which would weaken the Doctor's self-belief and confidence. This done, the two fought for the Glory, with the Master apparently triumphant. However, the Master was mistaken: the true battle was between his companion, Sato, and the Doctor's, the Cyberman Kroton. Kroton was the ultimate winner of this contest, and amongst his first acts as controller of the Glory were to cleanse the TARDIS of the Master's influence, and to banish the Master himself to parts unknown. The Master declared he would survive and return. (DWM: The Glorious Dead) One account tells of how he later escaped from the Eye and possessed the body of a Human native of 1906. (ST: Forgotten) Return In the Last Great Time War, the Time Lords themselves brought the Master back from oblivion in order to use him as a weapon in defense of Gallifrey. However, he deserted the instant the Dalek Emperor took control of the Cruciform (DW: The Sound of Drums) as the sheer scale of the conflict seemed to frighten even the Master. He fled to the end of the universe and used a Chameleon Arch to become Human, remaining in the guise of the elderly Professor Yana. Martha Jones recognized Yana's fob watch as similar to or the same as the one carried by the Doctor after he experienced the Chameleon Arch and unintentionally prompted Yana to open the watch. (DW: Utopia) Regeneration Recently liberated from the Human form of Professor Yana, he fatally wounded his assistant, Chantho, who though dying, fired a gun at him. The wounded Master managed to get into the Doctor's TARDIS. He decided that since Tenth Doctor had a youthful new body, he should too and so regenerated into one. The Master then left the Doctor on the planet Malcassairo with Futurekind about to burst in the laboratory door. The Master now had the TARDIS and the Doctor's hand (which Jack Harkness had taken with him to Malcassairo) that contained the Doctor's DNA. (DW: Utopia) He took the stolen TARDIS to Earth in the 2000s, about one and a half years before the Doctor had even met his companion Martha Jones. (DW: The Sound of Drums) Political Career On Earth, the Master began to fabricate a past for himself. As a politician, the Master used the simple slogan "Vote Saxon." (TW: Captain Jack Harkness) He was active from at least as early as 2007, when he started campaigning for the general election as Prime Minister of Great Britain (DW: Love & Monsters). By Christmas of 2007 he had enough authority to order the British Army to use tanks to fire at and destroy the Empress of the Racnoss's webstar. (DW: The Runaway Bride) "Saxon" asserted that extraterrestrial life did exist and that the British must do something about the fact. This stance made him popular in early 2008 after reports of the Judoon having transported the Royal Hope Hospital to the Moon (DW: Smith and Jones) Technological Innovations The Master started the Archangel Network. This telecommunications network, tied to mobile phones, carried a subtle mind control signal which made Humans trust him. The network affected the Doctor so that, on Earth earlier, he had never had any suspicions as to "Saxon". To those few Humans conscious of it, the signal sounded as a persistent drumbeat (the same as the constant drumbeat the Master always heard) that only they could hear. He also designed the Valiant, UNIT's air carrier, as well as a laser screwdriver, which he reserved for his own use. (DW: The Sound of Drums) "Saxon" funded the rejuvenation experiments of Richard Lazarus. (DW: The Lazarus Experiment) With the results from this, as well as the Doctor's DNA, the Master learned how to apply the results to the laser screwdriver, in order to age the Doctor. Other Activities The Master also contacted the Toclafane, the child-like yet vicious cyborg remnants of the future Humans who had never found Utopia. (DW: The Sound of Drums) He also cannibalized and converted the Doctor's TARDIS into a paradox machine so as to change history. (DW: The Sound of Drums/ Last of the Time Lords) At some point he also took a devoted Human wife, Lucy. (DW: The Sound of Drums) After Martha had left with the Doctor, he had an agent meet with Martha's mother Francine and tap into a conversation between Francine and Martha via the superphone, which could contact Martha through space and time. (DW: 42) As Prime Minister In 2008, he was elected as Prime Minister. He gassed to death his cabinet in the recently rebuilt 10 Downing Street and shortly afterward announced first contact with the "friendly" Toclafane who could protect Earth against alien threats. He put Jack Harkness's allies, Torchwood 3, on a futile trip to find him in the Himalayas and branded the Doctor, Jack and Martha as criminals. The Master repaired to The Valiant, which the governments of Earth considered neutral territory and therefore fitting for formal first contact with alien life. The Master had the Toclafane murder the American President Elect Arthur Coleman Winters. The Master captured the Doctor and Jack Harkness, who had come to The Valiant. Earlier that day, the Master's agent had had Francine Jones, Martha's sister Tish and her father Clive arrested and taken to the Valiant. (Martha's brother Leo had received a warning from her and gotten away in time.) (DW: The Sound of Drums) During The Year That Never Was The Master used his laser screwdriver to kill Jack and to age the Doctor about a hundred years. Martha managed to escape. The Master ordered the Toclafane to kill one tenth of humanity and commenced their invasion (DW: The Sound of Drums ). One year later, in 2009, the Master had converted Earth into a slave camp which he ruled from The Valiant. Here the Master kept Martha's family, the Doctor, and Jack imprisoned. The Master hoped to soon expand his New Time Lord Empire into space. Martha used the legend of the Doctor (which she had spread), the thoughts of Earth thinking "Doctor" at the same time, and channeled their psychic energy through the Archangel Network, which the Doctor had spent a year infiltrating with telepathy. The psychic energy restored the Doctor and give him telekinetic powers. Jack attacked the paradox machine and reversed time back one year. (This wouldn't affect anyone aboard The Valiant.) Lucy shot her husband, who, defeated, refused to regenerate. The Master then died in the Doctor's arms. Resurrection The Master was resurrected by the Disciples of Saxon, a sinister cult who worshipped the Master. Lucy Saxon, however, had made an potion of death to counter the potion of life used to revive the Master. In the ensuing explosion, the Master escaped as a shadow. Once he regained physical form, he discovered that the interruption of the ritual had left bizarre side-effects. He was forced to dye his hair a whitish-blonde to prevent anyone from noticing him as 'Harold Saxon'. He was pale and ghost-like. His flesh would occasionally turn transparent, exposing his skull. In addition he had developed the ability to shoot bolts of lightning from his hands and the the power of flight, but using these abilities came at the cost of his life-force. Furthermore, he seemed more insane than ever. His previously urbane and sophisticated personality had been replaced with a frenzied bloodlust and a ravenous and insatiable hunger. He would kill everyone he encountered for little to no reason, laughed maniacally at the slightest occurence and his behaviour bordered on that of a wild animal. The Doctor found the Master and they confronted one other. The Master used his psychic Time Lord abilities to let the Doctor into his mind, allowing him to hear the Drums. The Master escaped again, but was kidnapped and taken away. He was told to fix an alien gate called the Immortality Gate. The Master obviously jumped at the oppurtunity and fixed it. The Doctor and Wilfred Mott came into the room just as the Master entered the gate and Wilfred hid in an anti-radioactivity chamber of the power supply. The gate is found out to be a machine that changes the genetic DNA of the whole planet changing all Humans into his image. Everyone looked alike and acted alike. Only two humans escaped, Wilfred Mott, who was safe in the chamber, and Donna Noble, who was safe because she was part Time Lord. The Master later realised that the Time Lords were returning through the discovery of a Gallifreyan diamond, sent through the time lock by Lord President Rassilon, and also learned that the drumbeat in his head was a link that the Time Lords could use to return to the material universe. Upon their arrival, the Time Lords undid his actions with the Immortality Gate, restoring the Human race. The Master soon learnt that Rassilon had placed the noise of drums in his head as a child to be used as a link to Earth. As Gallifrey appeared in sky, on a collision course with Earth, the Doctor destroyed the crystal anchoring the Time Lords in the present with Wilf's gun. As Rassilon prepared to kill the Doctor, the Master, in an act of heroic self-sacrifice, used the last of his life-force to disable the deranged Time Lord leader before both the Time Lords and the Master vanished in a burst of white light. His final action saved the Doctor, and helped save the universe by stopping the Time Lords' plans, returning them and Gallifrey to the Time War. (DW: The End of Time) Alternate Timeline In the parallel timeline known as Donna's World, the Master remained as a Human on Malcassairo. This was because Martha Jones never met the Doctor, as he had died underneath the Thames without the aid of Donna Noble. His former companion, Rose Tyler, along with the alternate timeline version of Donna, eventually restored the original timeline. (DW: Turn Left) Master, The